Fragrances are used in numerous products to improve the odor. The impression of freshness and cleanliness in the case of, for example, air fresheners and also detergents and cleaning agents can be distinctly intensified by perfuming. The use of fragrances therefore constitutes a product improvement.
Compounds with a musk odor play an exceptional role in the perfume industry. Because of their unique property of harmonizing fragrance compositions, imparting personality to them and at the same time increasing their bonding, musk fragrances are nowadays found in considerable amounts in virtually every perfume oil. Accordingly, the annual world demand for musk fragrances is several thousand tonnes. The major proportion is made up of the so called “polycyclic aromatic” musk bodies. Typical representatives of this class of compounds are, for example, 1,3,4,6,7,8,8-hexahydro-4,6,6,8-hexamethylcyclopenta-(g)-2-benzopyrane (1) and 6-acetyl-1,1,2,4,4,7-hexamethyltetralin (2).
It is known that polycyclic aromatic musk fragrances are poorly biodegradable and, as extremely lipophilic compounds, display bioaccumulative behaviour, i.e. are able to accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms.
Macrocyclic musk fragrances, on the other hand, are accepted as biodegradable (R. Fenn, 1999, Perfumer & Flavorist, pp. 17-27; H. Gebauer, T. Bouter, 1997, Euro Cosmetics, pp.
In general, however, because of the generally increasing sensitization, it is of interest to keep the amounts of fragrances that pass into the environment as low as possible.
Mixtures of cylcopentadecanone (3), hexadecanolide (4) and pentadecanolide (oxacyclohexadecan-2-one) (5) are described in WO 98/32820 as particularly substantive on skin, hair and textile fibres.
Further mixtures are described as the direct product from the synthesis, such as in the case of cyclic ethylene glycol dodecanedioate (6) and ethylene glycol undecanedioate (7) (EP-A 905 222) or cyclotridecanolide (8), cyclotetradecanolide (9) and cyclopentadecanolide (5) (JP 2001/152177).
There is an urgent need for musk fragrances which have an odor that is stronger than that of the known macrocyclic musk fragrances.